#but also. objectively???? yogfic in 2022?? from ME??? phenomenally hilarious

[sparxwrites]

Ch.1 - “okay, you’re pretty”

(surprise, bitch! bet you thought you’d seen the last of me :) i’m not even in this fandom any more, but i do so hate to leave unfinished business lying around... and i had 30k of perfectly good fic with like three chapters left to complete, so. here we are. me, posting yogfic, in the year of our lord 2022. god help us all. )

(also, three notes before we start: 1- this will update every sunday until it’s done (i’ve got 11 chapters planned). 2- yes this chapter is similar to the oneshot i originally posted, but it’s lightly edited and significantly extended, so i don’t feel bad reposting it. 3- this is the funniest thing i have ever done.)

Art credit for banner.

[ao3]

“What if– y’know…” There’s a pause where Parvis struggles for words. He heaves a sigh when he can’t quite find them, and turns his face a little further into the comforting warmth of Will’s thigh instead. “Vampires.��

“Vampires?” asks Will, exhaustedly.

It’s gone four in the morning, the sun just beginning to rise over the horizon, and he’s sat on a bench in a park with his best friend draped over him and a stranger leant against him because they all decided it would be a good idea to watch the sun rise. He’s really not drunk enough to be able to justify this to himself – to be able to justify any of this evening to himself – but here he is.

Because of Parvis. Story of his damn life.

Parvis is sprawled out across Will’s knees, head in Will’s lap. The rest of him is draped across the bench they’re sat on, his legs hanging off the end at an angle that doesn’t look particularly comfortable but apparently works for him. Or, at least, he’s not complaining about it – though considering the amount of alcohol in his system at this point, that doesn’t really count for much.

Someone apparently called Kirin is on his other side, perched on the small sliver of bench not taken up by Parvis’ sprawl and Will’s tired hunch. He’s got an arm around Will’s shoulders, leaning against him and doing what feels like his best to crush him. The man’s a good foot taller than him, probably more, broad shouldered and heavy and very definitely not doing anything to keep himself even remotely upright. His cheek’s resting against the top of Will’s head, beard a barely-felt scratch against Will’s temple, and Will’s not entirely sure he’s actually still awake.

Part of Will is honoured that he apparently makes such a good pillow. The rest of him is rather more concerned about the way the arm trapped between the two of them is going numb.

Will’s not actually entirely sure who Kirin is, if he’s being honest. He’s seen him around the place once or twice, recognises his face – but an impressively drunk Parvis had dragged him over to where Will had been sat in some unfamiliar bar at a little before midnight, introduced him as my new favourite person ever, and that had been it. Parvis had dragged them both around for the rest of the evening and Kirin had followed, an arm around Parvis’ shoulder and a bemused smile on his face at Parvis’ exuberance and enthusiasm.

All in all, he’s been the easier of the two to deal with, even taking the lack of feeling in Will’s arm into account.

“Vampires,” repeats Parvis, and tries to dig his teeth into Will’s jeans-covered thigh by way of clarification. He fails, mostly ends up drooling a bit, and Will sighs.

“I will push you onto the floor,” he says – but it’s mostly an empty threat, one hand coming up to card through the mussed and slightly sweaty tangle of Parvis’ hair.

Parvis giggles, wrinkles up his nose, and doesn’t seem too bothered by the prospect. “What if– what if I’m a vampire, Will?” he says. Thankfully, he doesn’t try and bite anyone again. “I’ve got teeth. I could be a vampire. I’d be a good vampire.”

There’s a moment’s pause where Will considers dealing with all the problems in that sentence – starting with why do you want to be a vampire and ending with I’m not sure having teeth is the primary requirement there – and then just gives up. He strokes a thumb through Parvis’ hair, feels the way Kirin’s breath stirs his hair with every exhale, watches the sky fade from black to blue, and breathes.

“He talks a lot, doesn’t he?”

Kirin’s voice is thick with sleepiness, lips only an inch from Will’s ear, and Will can’t help huffing out an amused noise. “He really, really does,” he says, and can’t help but smile when Kirin chuckles.

After a long moment, Kirin shifts a little, so Will’s arm is no longer trapped between the two of them. On the bright side, that means it’s no longer going numb. On the less bright side, that means the pins and needles can begin as the blood returns to it. It also means he’s leant even more against Will’s side, leaving Will’s arm nowhere to really go other than around Kirin’s shoulder – but Will’s sort of okay with that.

Apparently bored by the lack of attention being paid to him, Parvis makes a noise somewhere between a growl and a distressed kitten, and begins his inefficient attempt to chew through Will’s jeans again. There’s an unpleasant wet patch forming against Will’s outer thigh that’s entirely the fault of Parvis’ mouth, but Parvis doesn’t seem to notice.

“Stop that,” says Will, and flicks Parvis’ nose. He sighs again when Parvis tries to chew on his fingers instead. “You’re terrible.”

“Pretty,” adds Kirin, voice little more than a murmur. Will’s not sure whether he’s referring to Parvis, the sunrise, or whatever he’s seeing behind his own half-closed eyelids – he’s still not entirely sure if Kirin is awake, or just sleeping with his eyes partially open and sleep-talking at convenient moments – but he hums in agreement nonetheless.

“Okay, you’re pretty, your face is a work of art…” sings Parvis, delighted and out of tune, giggling. He rolls over onto his back so he’s staring at Will’s face, at the slowly-purpling sky beyond that and the faint scattering of stars laced through it.

“Aren’t you in a band?” asks Will, absently carding fingers through the short hair at the nape of Kirin’s neck out of sheer force of habit. “How are you tone deaf and still in a band?”

Parvis giggles harder, but somehow manages to get the rest of the words out through his laughter. “Your smile could light up New York City after dark.” He reaches up vague, questing fingers over his head. Somehow, they manage to find Kirin’s face to poke at his mouth. Kirin sighs, chuckles a little, and Parvis grins wider at the rush of warm air over his fingertips. “Okay, you’re cover-boy pretty, stamped with a beauty mark…”

His fingers dance over Will’s cheeks, tracing out his freckles – one, two, three, too many to count – and Will feels his cheeks heat up, knows he’s probably gone bright red.

“You’re terrible,” repeats Will, though there’s no heat to the words, just tired affection. He threads his fingers a little higher up through Kirin’s hair to run careful nails over his scalp, and sighs at the way Kirin curls into him. The weight’s almost comforting, now, the warmth of the two people pressed up against him enough to stave off the shivers of the early-morning cold.

“I definitely need both your numbers,” says Parvis sleepily, ignoring Will completely as per usual and yawning widely. The sun’s rising, which seems like the perfect time to start thinking about sleep.

Kirin hums quietly, tilts his head a little more until his lips are pressed against Will’s temple, which does nothing to help the slowly fading blush across Will’s face. “I’m not actually sure I know where my phone is,” he admits, patting vaguely at his pockets with one hand before giving up almost immediately. “Ah well. It’ll turn up. Probably. Everything’s fine.”

Will laughs, flushes again when he feels the way Kirin’s lips curve into a smile against his skin at the noise. “Parvis, you already have my number.”

Parvis blinks up at him, grins wide and slightly sappy. One of Kirin’s hands settles on his head, and Parvis leans into it – into the way Kirin’s fingers link with Will’s against the tangle of his hair, the heat of their hands sinking into his scalp. “Oh, yeah,” he says, softly, and reaches up to touch two fingers to the corners of Will’s mouth. “I do.”

And then he promptly falls asleep, mouth open and drooling against Will’s leg.

It’s around the point that Parvis starts to snore, barely three minutes later, that Will decides they really need to get back to their student accommodation. “Wake up,” he says, tapping Parvis’ shoulder. “You need a bed, and I’m not dragging you to one.”

When that doesn’t work, Will jams two fingers into Parvis’ ribs, and then grabs him around the waist to prevent him from rolling off the bench with his flailing. “Up!” he growls, detaching himself from Kirin and standing up to haul at Parvis’ upper body, ignoring the groaning noises the action produces that are somewhat reminiscent of the undead. “I swear to god, Parvis…”

Kirin watches the performance with something between amusement and confusion, before getting to his own feet and stretching expansively – something Will’s very grateful for. Despite his height, Parvis is scrawny enough Will can just about manhandle him. Judging by Kirin’s broad shoulders and solid torso, Will wouldn’t be able to do the same with him.

It takes a considerable amount of hauling and supporting and cajoling to get Parvis on his feet, and he only manages to stay on them by wrapping arms around Will’s shoulders and leaning heavily against him. This close, his breath smells of cheap alcohol and something sweet, probably the coke he’d been mixing with whatever he was drinking, and Will wrinkles his nose in distaste. “You’re disgusting,” he informs Parvis, wrapping a reluctant arm around his waist to stabilise him.

“And you’re pretty,” retorts Parvis, swaying forward until their noses nearly touch, giggling at how red Will turns – whether from embarrassment or annoyance, he doesn’t know and doesn’t really care. “Pretty, pretty Willy Strifey…”

“That’s not an insult, Parvis,” mutters Will, pushing his face away and trying to ignore Kirin’s poorly-muffled laughter.

As if suddenly reminded of Kirin’s continued existence, Parvis perks up a little, prodding Will’s shoulders with the fingers of the arm thrown over it. “Oh, yeah! What’s happening to him?” he asks, hanging off of Will’s neck and waving a hand in the vague direction of Kirin.

For a brief second, Will is annoyed – apparently, he’s now responsible for the strange man that Parvis picked up, purely because he’s the most sober, which doesn’t really seem fair. But Kirin’s spinning in circles, peering at the skyline in a mystified and distinctly non-sober fashion, so it’s a fair enough question.

Will sighs, and turns to face Kirin, Parvis swaying like a counterweight against his hip. “Where’re you staying?” he asks, and Kirin shrugs.

“I’m kind of lost,” he says, apologetically – as though it remotely bothers Will whether he’s lost or not. He doesn’t sound too concerned, though. “I’m sure I’ll get home fine, though. My flat’s probably somewhere…” He spins in another circle and staggers, before staring up at the stars, frowning. “It’s fine.”

Will sighs, and wishes he were drunk enough to be okay with leaving Kirin to wander the streets in the early hours of the morning. “It’s not fine,” he says, exhaustedly, and grabs Kirin’s wrist to tug him along behind them. “You’re coming with us. Come on.”

He pretends not to notice the large, slightly dopey grin that spreads across Kirin’s face, and very carefully doesn’t wonder whether he’s just been played.

The walk back is, thankfully, largely uneventful. Parvis has trouble staying on his feet and staying awake, but Kirin’s steady enough to help Will hold him up. Between the two of them, he manages to walk most of the way, his cheerful singing slowly quieting down to an out-of-tune hum.

Kirin gives him a piggy-back for the rest of the short trip, draped drunk and sprawling and still humming to himself over the width of Kirin’s shoulders. It’s an effort for Will not to stare, reluctantly amazed at the way Kirin bears Parvis’ weight so effortlessly, despite the very distinctly crooked line his footsteps make across the pavement.

The student housing flat block isn’t too far, a ten minute walk from the bar they’d been in, which itself was a five minute walk from the park they’d all ended up in. The walk back takes them over twenty, thanks mostly to Parvis’ shambling gait at first, and then to his weight slowing Kirin down, but they do all eventually make it in one piece.

Opening the door to the building, and then the door to the flat Will and Parvis share with Xephos and Lalna, and then the door to Will’s room, is something of an adventure. For a heart-stopping moment outside the building itself, Will thinks he’s actually lost his keys – but then he finds them in Parvis’ pocket, and from there it’s just a case of remembering which key is for which door, and then remembering exactly how keys work.

He realises, as he fumbles his attempt to put the key in the lock for the fourth time, that he may be drunker than he’d thought.

When they all finally fall into Will’s room – literally, falling through the doorway when the door suddenly opens with them all leaning against it – Parvis is asleep again on Kirin’s back, and neither Kirin nor Will are particularly awake. While Will shucks off his coat and scarf, carefully toeing off his boots, Kirin heads straight for the bed, taking Parvis with him.

By the time Will’s kicked his shoes off, moving both Kirin and Parvis’ shoes out the way of the door so they won’t all trip over them in the morning, his bed has already been stolen.

Kirin’s taking up most of it, sprawling expansively across the mattress, eyes already closed. Tucked under his arm and pressed against his ribcage is Parvis, a ball of too-long limbs somehow wedged between his side and the wall.

Will sighs. He can always go and sleep in Parvis’ bed, provided he’s forgotten to lock the door to his room as he usually does – and if that fails, he can brave waking Xephos up to try and beg the blow-up mattress off of him. Not that he particularly relishes the thought of waking the other student up at what’s rapidly approaching five in the morning.

Standing there, running a hand through his hair in faint exasperation, he jumps when Kirin’s hand curls around his wrist. It tugs him insistently towards the bed, only holds on tighter when he tries to pull his arm away. “No,” says Kirin, plaintively. Will tries to extract his wrist again, fails to pry the bands of iron that are Kirin’s fingers away from his wrist. “No, please, don’t do that. Please.”

He tugs again – and Will, exhausted and still a little, perhaps a lot, drunk and so very done with all of this, lets himself tumble onto the bed. Onto Kirin’s chest.

“Better,” murmurs Kirin, sounding inordinately pleased with himself, rearranging an unhelpfully ragdoll Will into a more comfortable position. He ends up with his head tucked under Kirin’s chin, curled mostly on the other man’s chest, legs tangled with Parvis’. One of Kirin’s arms is thrown over his shoulders. “Much better.”

Will wants to argue, to point out that this really isn’t better at all. There’s far too many of them in a single bed. They’re going to overheat horrifically in the tiny room, someone’s going to fall off the mattress, and they’re all going to wake up in the morning with aches from being contorted into strange positions.

But Kirin’s a solid warmth beneath him, a slow rise-fall of expanding and contracting ribs, every exhale stirring Will’s hair. He has to admit to himself, before sleep takes advantage of the alcohol and exhaustion to drag him down into unconsciousness, that Kirin might just be right.